Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Cruel Things I've Seen People Do
Cruel Things I've Seen People Do
All of these things were done by people I love:
About twenty years ago, when we were in our mid-twenties, a friend of mine and I were in his car. He was driving. All his life, even before he learned to drive, my friend would say, "Why don't they signal?" whenever he saw a car turning without the signal going. He also really hated drivers who sped up after you passed them. "I'm passing them!" he'd say. "Why are they speeding up?"
Anyway, he was behind the wheel, preparing to cross an intersection. I think I remember the very one. He was about to cross when a car waiting on the road perpendicular to the one we were on turned left, cutting him off. "Can't use your signal, can you, old man?" my friend shouted.
Indeed, the driver was geriatric.
Another friend and I were in the parking lot at Waldbaum's. He worked in a store in the same shopping center, so he was intimately familiar with the geography of the parking lot. He was driving between rows of parked cars. Another car came along and he had to move a little to make way. "Cunt!" my friend cried. "Drive the right direction!" There were no arrows pointing any direction.
A friend of mine once bragged to me of the time he delivered something to the Huntington Town House. Before going in, he'd noticed a car parked with its flashers on at the side of the road. It wasn't all the way to the side. Part of the car was jutting into the right lane of Jericho Turnpike. My friend went into the lobby and said, "Is somebody's car in the road there?"
A man looked up and said, "That's my car."
"Well, somebody hit it," said my friend.
"Oh, my God!" said the man. "My daughter's in there." He started running out the door.
"She's dead!" my friend shouted.
One time, the friend of the Waldbaum's parking lot was behind the wheel in bumper-to-bumper traffic coming out of Robert Moses. My other two friends from the above paragraphs were in the car, too. We were all sunburned, tired and dehydrated. We'd been in the car tweny minutes and had gone half a mile. Kids in the back seat of the car in front of us were waving at us. They took their fingers and pressed their noses to make pig faces. My friend behind the wheel waved back and signalled them to make piggy noses again. When they did that, his front bumper tapped the back bumper of the car the kids were in. My friend laughed as the kids fell into the back dash. He made a piggy nose himself. The driver door of the other car opened. A short, huge-breasted woman in sunglasses and spandex trotted toward us. "You wanna play little games with the kids, do you? You wanna bam your car into my car with them in the back, huh? You wanna play a goddamn fucking game with their lives?"
The rest of the ride home was polite. Women, children and old people were able to relax for a while, even though we were on the road.
All of these things were done by people I love:
About twenty years ago, when we were in our mid-twenties, a friend of mine and I were in his car. He was driving. All his life, even before he learned to drive, my friend would say, "Why don't they signal?" whenever he saw a car turning without the signal going. He also really hated drivers who sped up after you passed them. "I'm passing them!" he'd say. "Why are they speeding up?"
Anyway, he was behind the wheel, preparing to cross an intersection. I think I remember the very one. He was about to cross when a car waiting on the road perpendicular to the one we were on turned left, cutting him off. "Can't use your signal, can you, old man?" my friend shouted.
Indeed, the driver was geriatric.
Another friend and I were in the parking lot at Waldbaum's. He worked in a store in the same shopping center, so he was intimately familiar with the geography of the parking lot. He was driving between rows of parked cars. Another car came along and he had to move a little to make way. "Cunt!" my friend cried. "Drive the right direction!" There were no arrows pointing any direction.
A friend of mine once bragged to me of the time he delivered something to the Huntington Town House. Before going in, he'd noticed a car parked with its flashers on at the side of the road. It wasn't all the way to the side. Part of the car was jutting into the right lane of Jericho Turnpike. My friend went into the lobby and said, "Is somebody's car in the road there?"
A man looked up and said, "That's my car."
"Well, somebody hit it," said my friend.
"Oh, my God!" said the man. "My daughter's in there." He started running out the door.
"She's dead!" my friend shouted.
One time, the friend of the Waldbaum's parking lot was behind the wheel in bumper-to-bumper traffic coming out of Robert Moses. My other two friends from the above paragraphs were in the car, too. We were all sunburned, tired and dehydrated. We'd been in the car tweny minutes and had gone half a mile. Kids in the back seat of the car in front of us were waving at us. They took their fingers and pressed their noses to make pig faces. My friend behind the wheel waved back and signalled them to make piggy noses again. When they did that, his front bumper tapped the back bumper of the car the kids were in. My friend laughed as the kids fell into the back dash. He made a piggy nose himself. The driver door of the other car opened. A short, huge-breasted woman in sunglasses and spandex trotted toward us. "You wanna play little games with the kids, do you? You wanna bam your car into my car with them in the back, huh? You wanna play a goddamn fucking game with their lives?"
The rest of the ride home was polite. Women, children and old people were able to relax for a while, even though we were on the road.
# posted by Fredwemyss @ 3:24 AM 
